


Division

by Rhaized



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fighting, Gen, Grief, Marisa is having a hard time, Mention of wanting to die, Murder, Spoilers for The Amber Spyglass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28937871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaized/pseuds/Rhaized
Summary: Mrs. Coulter is not able to stop or overpower Father MacPhail at the scene of the bomb, as Lord Roke did not accompany her. Father MacPhail throws her into the separation chamber, pulls the lever, and the unbearable happens.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 29





	Division

**Author's Note:**

> “My CHILD! My DAUGHTER! Where is she? What have you done? My Lyra—you’d do better to tear the fibers from my heart—she was SAFE with me, SAFE, and now where is she?”  
> —The Amber Spyglass, Ch. 16: “The Intention Craft,” p. 178

Mrs. Coulter’s vision blurred as she was guided off the zeppelin by two Magisterial guards, their faces set and their grips firm as they stepped off the landing and tugged her down after them. Their dog daemons trotted by their sides, alert with noses pointed up toward the cool wind as a flurry of activity surrounded them: engines turning over, men running and shouting, equipment being unloaded onto the surface of the rock up ahead of them. There was a metallic taste in the air, surging through Mrs. Coulter’s nostrils with each flow of the breeze. It was hot yet simultaneously chilling. She could barely see, as the adrenaline coursed so hotly through her veins that her head spun and she felt quite faint. All she knew was movement, as she was pushed forward and they kept going and going. 

It was all too much, as the men nudged her forward, arms locked with hers as they traversed the rough terrain in the middle of the stark wilderness. Small pebbles assaulted Mrs. Coulter's feet as they pressed forward, and her heart stirred as she knew  _ exactly  _ what they were doing and what was at stake. And seeing as Lord Roke had been discovered earlier in the night, she now had absolutely no way to intervene since she was on her own.

_Where’s the bomb?_ Mrs. Coulter asked the golden monkey, who was resting snugly on her shoulders. She understood that they had no choice but to stay put, or else face immediate death by a guard as they’d been ordered to shoot either of them if they tried to flee. It would be more _ideal_ to separate and to take some risks, but they had to be careful. While her _own_ survival wasn’t particularly important, they needed to survive long enough to stop this bomb before it was too late for Lyra. 

Lyra.  _ Oh,  _ Mrs. Coulter could barely breathe as the weight of it all swirled around her as they kept trudging forward along the narrow dirt path. These people were vile, with their fear of the unknown which they could not mold or control. They would stop at nothing to eliminate the threat of a second fall, she  _ knew  _ they wouldn't. And it's that which made it so hard to focus in this moment, and which made it all feel as incredibly dire and dangerous as it truly was. 

Her daemon's little beady eyes scanned ahead and around them as they continued walking.  _ Looks like they’re unloading it there. _

Her blue eyes followed his, locating the thick mob of people running to and fro across a platform of sorts. She feigned tripping on a rock in order to stall and allow him to search more. Her body lurched forward as her foot was supposedly caught, and the monkey tumbled off her back with a hiss of exaggerated surprise and pain as he continued to look around them, his eyes quickly and furiously searching and memorizing each and every detail of the scene.

It was very dark, as they were moving ahead in the dead of night, but up ahead was a series of flood lights. Men were shouting and directing the people unloading and fussing with the equipment. It looked mostly set up, though, as they had waited a long while on the airship after first landing. One of the guard's daemons snapped at the monkey at this point, bearing her sharp great dane teeth, so he shrank back innocently as he continued to look.

_ There’s nothing we can do while still guarded like this,  _ he thought to her, his tone wild and desperate as he kept squinting and gazing into the distance and all around them.  _ There’s no way around this. _

"Thank you," Mrs. Coulter was saying as a guard helped her up, and she sighed prettily, locking eyes with her daemon and understanding exactly what they had to do. 

After a few more minutes of walking they came to a sudden halt, with the guard to her right putting his arm out in front of her as the one of her left went ahead and left them behind.

“What’s happening?” she asked him, voice soft and flecked with a frightened sort of confusion. “Please, tell me, sir. What’s going on?”

“Father MacPhail needs some help up ahead,” he said curtly, not turning to look at her. She put her hand on his arm then as she let out something resembling a whimper, squeezing his jacket gently until he looked at her. 

“I’m afraid,” she whispered to him, making her voice crack and forcing tears to pool up in her eyes as she gazed as intensely as she could at him. She felt him fidget as he stared at her, his face just barely visibly softening. He was a young man, in his early twenties or so. He may have been trained as a loyal, dutiful soldier prepared to kill and to defend and everything else in between, but he was still human and so very young and impressionable.

“Don’t be afraid, ma’am,” he offered, leaning closer to her. He hesitated then, looking from Mrs. Coulter to somewhere behind him where the rest of the activity was happening.

The distraction was as good as it would get, so the monkey pounced. With a great snarl he sank his claws precisely into the dog daemon’s eyes. She howled and her human tottered; Mrs. Coulter then drove her knee up exactly where it’d hurt and the man toppled over. The monkey was struggling with the man’s daemon, his hands wrapped around its neck as the beast kept moving and shaking her head, so Mrs. Coulter came to help, even as she was shackled. She came up to them and stood over the dog, straddling its back. Ice spread through both Mrs. Coulter and the monkey with the contact, as it was  _ forbidden,  _ and  _ wrong,  _ but she gritted her teeth and ignored it as she positioned her arms around its head (wincing as she felt the brush of her teeth on her hand) and, with help from the monkey, pulled  _ up. _

The dog’s neck cracked and soon there was nothing there below Mrs. Coulter. She tottered herself as golden particles replaced the solid being she had previously been wrestling with. She spared a glance at the soldier, who had collapsed face-first to the ground. 

_ Good,  _ she thought, before nodding to her daemon and watching as he darted further along the path toward all the action.

She did what had to be done as she searched the guard’s body for keys. He didn’t have any, which was frustrating but not entirely fatal to her cause. Picking up his gun and some extra bullets from his pocket (albeit clumsily due to her hands being tied), she crept toward the side of the path in the shadows and moved forward. She noticed that most people were up ahead and she probably had a couple more minutes before anyone realized that something was wrong and she wasn't coming along the path. 

It was a completely unideal situation. The monkey noted how they had the bomb set up and ready, likely waiting for her to arrive. Father MacPhail was in sight, too, talking to a pair of guards. If Mrs. Coulter could get into position behind him, and if she could hold up the gun and fire...

But before she could determine the best way to move closer, someone spotted her. The monkey hissed and snarled as Mrs. Coulter held up the gun, struggling with it as she tried to cock it. Two more guards surged forward and rushed her, knocking her off balance and sending the gun flying. Her eyes darted over to the monkey's, desperate for his help, but he couldn't do anything as he was cornered by a pair of ferocious dog daemons. 

_ This is it,  _ she despaired, feeling real tears start to well up now as the guards roughly pulled her up and dragged her back onto the path, her daemon following while being held in the jaws of one of the dogs. She couldn't escape. They were too strong, and there were more guards nearby coming over to them.

_ I'm sorry,  _ her daemon offered, and he was, despite his misgivings and disagreements about the entire ordeal. Their shared sympathy carried them through as they were tossed down on the ground in front of Father MacPhail, whose dark eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down. 

"Killed a guard and tried to escape, did you?" he asked, his voice a sneer. One of the guards snickered, but Mrs. Coulter didn't look up at him. She wouldn't acknowledge him; she wouldn't  _ give in  _ to him. She couldn't provide him with that satisfaction, with the  _ disgrace  _ that he so desperately wanted from her. She’d rather die without forsaking her dignity like this.

After a long pause, he said nothing further. He seemed to understand as they carried on with it, gathering together and breaking out into some kind of chant and prayer over her. Mrs. Coulter wasn't listening to them. Instead she dug her nails into the monkey's neck, pressing down deep into his silky fur. He moved closer to her so that their bodies were brushing against one another. 

_ Is this it?  _ he asked her, trembling now beside her.  _ Is this the last moment we'll live?  _

He wailed inwardly, and so did she but thinking not of him or of  _ them  _ but of Lyra, and how she'd failed to protect her as she had been able to successfully do the past three times before now. Her mind reeled, wondering if she could dart over to the bomb and reach the chamber where the hair was, but it was too late; they would just kill her anyway. There was nothing Mrs. Coulter could do. Absolutely nothing.

Eventually the guards moved her over to the mesh chambers, so eerily similar to the ones she'd designed and tested herself back at the Station. It was fitting, for Father MacPhail himself to throw her in there like a captured animal, her knees roughly meeting the steel of the flooring as the golden monkey thrashed around on his side and called out for her. She deserved it, to hear the steel gates shut and everyone set up in place. He said something to her, mumbling about “paying for her sins,” and she nodded, the words and the sting of it all absorbing into every ounce of her flesh.

_ This is good,  _ Mrs. Coulter thought, a feeling of utter insanity creeping into her sense of reality as she started to grin. She wanted to laugh, almost, as well as cry.  _ It’s good that I’m going to die. I can’t bear existing in a world without Lyra. _

_ But what about  _ **_me?_ ** the golden monkey thought, and it was tragic and unworldly yet at the same time something Mrs. Coulter couldn't think about as she heard the machine whirl up. She closed her eyes, breathing in the chilled night air and, instinctually, reaching out for her daemon, whose little black fingers poked through the mesh to graze against her hand. They’d never been ones to crave affection like this, but this was different, of course, as sometimes the very end of the line is enough to bring out even the most suppressed instincts. Her heart pounded, as she knew the bomb was off somewhere below them, waiting for her to activate it. Her mind instantly flashed back to Lyra, too, and she wailed.

A life without Lyra was no life at all, Mrs. Coulter thought bitterly,  _ achingly, _ as, finally, the blade tore down and ripped right through the bond that connected her and the monkey.

  
But then, after a blinding flash of light and being jostled out of the cage entirely over onto the cold ground, she opened her eyes.  _ How was it _ that she opened her eyes, seeing her daemon staring woefully up at her right after they had heard the unmistakable roar of the bomb? 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic feels like a culmination of multiple inspirations that I’d like to properly note here: first, I read the thelonecritic’s awesome story, “The Birth of a Monster” https://archiveofourown.org/works/28484181/chapters/69795204 and was so taken with Marisa’s rage of Lyra being hurt and thought, well, what about if it happened in book 3? Then, I remembered LostBerryQueen’s very interesting and poignant fic, “Vergessen” https://archiveofourown.org/works/23917558/chapters/57511330 where Marisa inserts herself into the separating chamber and survives because she and the monkey were not fully connected to begin with. And, thank you to cassidy, basil, vienna, and deborah for talking with me about it when the topic first came up! 
> 
> There will be a few more parts to this (not exactly sure how many). Thanks for reading! And please check out these two other stories as well as if you haven't already!


End file.
